Right now I feel pretty depressed because I just dropped off my dad and brother off at the airport. I feel alone again, instant loneliness the second I drove away from the airport. But instead of blogging about my sadness, let's talk about last night's mercyme concert, which easily tops any concert I have ever been to.

4 of us were at the concert; Gladys, Anita, Darryl (my bro) and I. Anita, Darryl and I went to wonderland in the afternoon to ride the rollercoasters, and we met up with Gladys (who had a softball game that afternoon) later on. When we got there we lined up at Drop Zone for about 45 minutes before a torrential downpour came. We were in the front of the line when this happened, literally seconds before we were to go out and do the ride, it poured. They shut down the ride (actually the entire park) and waited it out. Unfortunately due to its design, Drop Zone is the last ride to start up again, so we left and rode the Minebuster and then the Skyrider, before we went to the concert. Anyway, back to the concert.

I read somewhere that mercyme was even better live than they are on cd. Even better? They are WAAAAAAAY better live than on cd (which if you think about it is kinda scary). mercyme ranks as my favorite Christian band, and now they are heads and shoulders above the rest, they were unbelievable last night. All 3 performers were awesome. David Crowder Band, mercyme, Michael W. Smith. They all played, on top of their own songs, praise songs so it was just one big worshipfest.

David Crowder Band opened, starting with "No One Like You". I don't think I remember the exact order, but here are the songs they played from Illuminate:

O Praise Him
Skies (Interlude)
Open Skies
Coming Toward (Track 13)

David Crowder is a wacko, I mean if you look at him, he is freakish. Tall, lanky and his hair is just nuts.. like a 'fro, but then a long funny looking una-bomber-like beard. If I'm not mistaken DCB has been around as long if not longer than MercyMe, but haven't enjoyed the same kind of success. They were obviously not as well known as MM or MWS by the crowd reaction, but Canada rocks as they say, and people were pretty hyped by his stuff.

Next they set up the stage for MM, but they put a piano in the middle. MWS came out and for a minute I thought maybe MM was coming out last, as if they were bigger than Michael W. Smith? But he came out, started singing a praise song and then the MM band came out, and it was awesome, Bart and Michael singing along.. I was totally blown away by this, and so was Darryl.

MM opened with "Here With Me" and then "The Change Inside of Me". Overall they sang from albums..

Almost There
Here Am I
I Can Only Imagine

Spoken For
The Change Inside of Me
Spoken For
Word of God Speak

Undone
Here With Me
In The Blink Of An Eye
Homesick
Undone

These were inter-twined with praise songs. I can remember singing "Breathe", "Because He Lives (I can face tomorrow)", and there were others. Too many to count. Whereas DCB sang for 30 minutes, MM sang for an hour. Bart was struggling to hit some of the higher notes, he was coughing at times, probably worn out from this long tour.

Before he sang Homesick, Bart talked about losing his brother-in-law in January, about how his b-i-l had been struggling with his walk, and they had straightened him out, and on his way home he died in a single car crash. Bart wrote the song and sang it at the funeral. I think I've blogged about this before. Anyway, it was a touching moment.

All the MM band members list U2 as one of their favorite bands. So fittingly they sang "Where the Streets Have No Name" last, before MWS. In fact, Smith sang with them, it was awesome.. my favorite U2 song, sung and played by MercyMe and Michael W. Smith. I couldn't believe it, I was totally blown away by it, almost close to tears from pure joy by the end of the song. It was beautiful!

Then, Smith comes out and sings a couple of praise songs, then he sang Secret Ambition and Rocketown, major oldies yes, but both songs me and Darryl knew so we were loving it.

He also sang two songs from his new album coming out in October. I know one of them was called "Healing Rain". It was a good one.

Near the end, he started to sing "Above All". It was all dark around him just the spotlight on him on the piano, and then, the lights come on and MercyMe is there and they all sang together! Above All (written by MWS) is a HUGE song in the States.. anyone following the latest NASA crash will remember footage of people gathering in churches singing Above All (and I Can Only Imagine, which I'll get to in a sec). So after Above All, they sang some more praise songs together, and then..

I Can Only Imagine came up, still MercyMe singing it, but Michael W. Smith singing the odd verses. CRAZY! It was so awesome!!

The Spirit was moving, God was moving, people were standing up or bowed to the ground, with their arms raised.. I was crying.. even Darryl (usually Mr. Un-animated) had his arms up to the heavens.

At the end, David Crowder Band came out and joined MM and MWS, and they sang a few more praise songs, ending it all off with "Open The Eyes (of my heart Lord)". Each sang a verse, and the last time they sang the chorus, we moshed it.

I've never moshed before; it's tiring and hard.. Maybe I'm getting too old but I had some trouble jumping and pumping my fist and singing all at the same time. :) But it was fun! DCB, MM, MWS all singing and rocking.. good times!

And then MWS and DC ran around the back of the stage and climbed up to the top above the speakers in the middle, and hugged. It was so funny! And then DC jumped down, it must've been like an 8-foot drop!

Finally the concert ended with the audience sing "(Our God is an) Awesome God".